Biological image presentation device, biological image presentation method, program, and biological image presentation system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10410083-B2
Application number	US-201615132536-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 19, 2016
Priority date	Apr 1, 2009
Publication date	Sep 10, 2019
Grant date	Sep 10, 2019

Abstract

A biological image presentation device includes: an acquisition unit; a determination unit determining an image as a standard and an image for comparison; an extraction unit extracting, from the image as a standard, a position where a change of luminance value equal to or larger than a defined value is present; a detection unit detecting a position corresponding to the position extracted from the image for comparison; a division unit dividing the image as a standard on the basis of the position extracted; a mapping unit mapping the image for comparison to an area corresponding to each divided area of the image as a standard while modifying so as to conform to the shape of the divided area; and a display control unit switching and displaying an image for display in a display area by using the image as a standard and an image mapped by the mapping unit.

First claim

The invention is claimed as follows:

1. A biological image processing device comprising:
an acquisition unit configured to acquire, at multiple positions on an axis as a standard of a biological region, images of tissue slices sliced at multiple positions in the depth direction of a tissue excised from the biological region;
a determination unit configured to determine an image as a standard and an image for comparison with the image as a standard from among a plurality of images acquired by the acquisition unit;
an extraction unit configured to extract a plurality of feature points including a first feature point from the image as a standard, wherein each of the plurality of feature points is extracted from a respective portion without gradation present;
a detection unit configured to detect a position corresponding to the feature point from the image for comparison;
a mapping unit configured to map each pixel of the image for comparison to a corresponding position of a three-dimensional object while modifying the image for comparison to conform to the image as a standard; and
a display unit configured to
display the three-dimensional object as a thumbnail image, and
display a three-dimensional slice image corresponding to a designated position of the three-dimensional object.

2. The biological image processing device according to claim 1 , wherein the detection unit is configured to:
set an attention block having a defined area in the image as a standard that is centered about the first feature point,
search an area of the image for comparison for a corresponding comparison block that has the highest correlation value with the attention block, the search area of the image for comparison being larger than an area of the attention block,
if the correlation value is equal to or larger than a defined value, set a center of the comparison block in the image for comparison as a corresponding position to the first feature point in the image as a standard, and
if the correlation value is less than the defined value, delete the first feature point in the image as a standard.

3. The biological image processing device according to claim 1 ,
the detection unit is configured to detect a plurality of respective corresponding positions from the image for comparison, and
wherein the mapping unit is configured to modify the image for comparison by mapping each pixel of the image for comparison based on differences in position between respective feature points in the image as a standard and the corresponding positions in the image for comparison.

4. The biological image processing device according to claim 3 , further comprising a dividing unit that is configured to:
divide the image as a standard into a plurality of divided areas, each divided area being based on the plurality of the extracted feature points, and
divide the image for comparison into a plurality of divided areas, each divided area being based on a plurality of the detected corresponding positions, the divided areas of the image as a standard corresponding to respective divided areas of the image for comparison.

5. The biological image processing device according to claim 4 , wherein for at least one of the divided areas of the image for comparison, the mapping unit is configured to map each pixel of said divided area such that a shape of said divided area become more similar to a shape of the respective divided area of the image as a standard.

6. The biological image processing device according to claim 4 , wherein shapes of the divided areas of the image as a standard and the image for comparison are triangular.

7. The biological image processing device according to claim 1 , wherein the first feature point corresponds to a pixel position in the image as a standard where a change in luminance in a pixel area about said first feature point is equal to or smaller than a defined value.

8. The biological image processing device according to claim 1 , wherein the first feature point corresponds to a pixel position in the image as a standard where a change in luminance in a pixel area about said first feature point is larger than a defined value.

9. The biological image processing device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a display unit division unit that divides the image as a standard and the image for comparison into display unit blocks; and
a display control unit,
wherein the display control unit
predicts a next image for display in accordance with a current image, stores the display unit blocks of the predicted image in a buffer memory,
reads the display unit blocks of the same portions of the next image for display in a display area as the predicted image, from the buffer memory, and
reads the display unit blocks of portions different from the predicted image from a storage unit.

10. The biological image processing device according to claim 1 , further comprising:
a three-dimensional image generation unit configured to store a plurality of images for comparison as a three-dimensional slice image.

11. The biological image processing device according to claim 10 , further comprising:
a different resolution image generation unit configured to generate the three-dimensional slice image as an image of different resolutions for a plurality of levels, wherein each of the plurality of levels is divided into tiles.

12. A biological image processing method comprising:
acquiring, at multiple positions on an axis as a standard of a biological region, images of tissue slices sliced at multiple positions in the depth direction of a tissue excised from the biological region;
determining an image as a standard and an image for comparison with the image as a standard from among a plurality of images acquired by the acquisition unit;
extracting a plurality of feature points including a first feature point from the image as a standard, wherein each of the plurality of feature points is extracted from a respective portion without gradation present;
detecting a position corresponding to the feature point from the image for comparison;
mapping each pixel of the image for comparison to a corresponding position of a three-dimensional object while modifying the image for comparison to conform to the image as a standard;
displaying the three-dimensional object as a thumbnail image; and
displaying a three-dimensional slice image corresponding to a designated position of the three-dimensional object.

13. The biological image processing method according to claim 12 , further comprising:
dividing the image as a standard and the image for comparison into display unit blocks;
predicting a next image for display in accordance with a current image, storing the display unit blocks of the predicted image in a buffer memory;
reading the display unit blocks of the same portions of the next image for display in a display area as the predicted image, from the buffer memory; and
reading the display unit blocks of portions different from the predicted image from a storage unit.

14. The biological image processing method according to claim 12 , further comprising:
storing a plurality of images for comparison as a three-dimensional slice image.

15. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a computer program for causing a computer to:
acquire, at multiple positions on an axis as a standard of a biological region, images of tissue slices sliced at multiple positions in the depth direction of a tissue excised from the biological region;
determine an image as a standard and an image for comparison with the image as a standard from amo

Assignees

• Sony Corp

Inventors

• Yoshioka Shigeatsu
• Fukushi Gakuho

Classifications

• G02B21/34 Primary

  Microscope slides, e.g. mounting specimens on microscope slides · CPC title

• G06V10/426

  Graphical representations · CPC title

• G06T2207/20021

  Dividing image into blocks, subimages or windows · CPC title

• G02B21/367

  providing an output produced by processing a plurality of individual source images, e.g. image tiling, montage, composite images, depth sectioning, image comparison · CPC title

• G06T7/337

  involving reference images or patches · CPC title